This is what I've been up to for the last month!

I've been very worn out ever since that blizzard of activity around my birthday and I guess this blog has paid the price. I haven't been able to face the editing of all the pictures. Maybe it's time to go "raw" and not edit. I'll just post the pics as is and the ones that are edited, well they are the lucky ones LOL. Some of them are out of order too and since I can't quite work out how to fix it, that is how they shall stay.

First, we made s'mores... 

Warren eats his s'more fancily :)

Pinky UP! Now THAT's fancy.

Our S'more-making captain. He's fancy too, see? Pinky up

Aww, s'more time is over.

Taking pics of the ultimate s'more

Everyone wanted a picture of that beauty (made by Warren)

See? I had to have a pic too

Then I made a faux chenille blanket with the fabric that Mom and Dad bought as a gift for my birthday. I'm glad they did because I wouldn't have bought the fabric otherwise!

Faux Chenille blanket...all done! It will only get softer over the years

a close up of the washed blanket

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pre-wash blanket. My thumb is still a little numb from cutting all the rows for this blanket

this close-up will demonstrate how imperfect my blanket is. Yet, it still turned out really nicely.

one last pic then off to the washer!

The Garden continues to progress and get prettier and prettier and I try to remember to take pics every week or so.

one of the bushes by the fence has started to bloom

Bill's container garden is starting to give us flowers

this bush has some very mean thorns and very delicate flowers

yay! Irises! I have really missed these flowers

looking at the length of the garden

the rose bushes are starting to bloom in mid-June

this is a couple of days before the lilac bush opened and smelled so fabulous

a pretty little bloom

okay nasturtiums...you can start blooming now!

the fabric boxes are progressing too

crabapple blooms in mid June

panorama of the view from the window of the apartment

looking at the house now.

flamingo love birds. So sweet!

wild forget-me-nots that decided to grace us with their welcome presence

giving the marigolds a shower

Puppet time! We made these for a video we are working on getting together before I leave and have no more partners in crime LOL Denali and Katie love playing puppets together and decided that the yellow one is Pizza Man. He eats too much pizza and gets ill. Of course, we thought that was a very funny background and latched right on to it for a little puppet picture story.

Weeeeee! Puppets are fun!

Pizza Man puppet has had one slice to many

Poor Pizza Man. he needs to learn restraint.

No Pizza Man! Not more pizza!

Will he never learn?

I can hear him laughing "Ahhh hha haa haa" right before he goes and sleeps it off...

Back to the garden for some more pics!

The rose bush in mid June

more flower pics!

the lilac bush gave us some lovely blooms last week and it smelled wonderful! I wish it could have lasted longer, but they went brown a few days later.

Loved this flower. It was a beautiful color

As the petals fell from the crabapple tree, it looked like a mini snowstorm LOL looks like I forgot to rotate this picture...

clover! I love clover, too.

We decided to stop by a car show that our friends were a part of and I promised to get pictures. This I did but as I know almost nothing about cars I really can't add too much to the pics LOL

My friend TeeCea's and Sheb's racecar

car show at East High to raise money for the football team. Shame the weather was so bum.

happy girl.

the yellow mustang had a sweet 8 track in it!

We had a little lunch after the car show and she insisted I take her pic

my silly faux hawk. I just needed to motivate so I decided to mess with my hair. :)

I just like this pic of Katie

She insisted I take a pic like this...so here it is.

Rainbow Dash "softie" that I threw together for Katie's birthday. It took about 4 days to finish and she was watching me the whole time, circling like a shark. I told her it was for a needy child and she started crying! It was two days before her birthday and it really was for her so I told her that she is, indeed, the needy child that is far from home and needs a friend, then I let her take it and sleep with it every night with the agreement that on her birthday, I'm wrapping it up because it was meant to be her present. She was really happy with that arrangement.

I'm going to make another and see if it sells on Etsy

For Katie's birthday she decided to do crafts to "save money" in reality, I think it would have been cheaper to do a party at Chuck E Cheese, but this was still good fun and she liked it.

the birthday set up

We had to make sure the carpet was unsullied so we put down a big tarp before the painting started at Katie's birthday

Ready to go!

Warren smiles especially for Grandma and Grandpa. What a great kid he is.

Here we are painting our boxes.

Denali gets help from Mommy.

The birthday girl works on a star box

Denali is done. no really...she's DONE.

Katie and Kenzy pose for the camera

Aspyn works on her box

someone has a gold foot! (it's Denali!)

We did cake pops instead of cake so she's getting ready to blow out the cake pop

NOM NOM NOM!

These are really tight! They will loosen and we will certainly use them!

making the cat puppet MEOW!

Turns out dipping the chalk in sugar water before drawing does make them last longer! This was there even after it rained.

The spoon lilac bloomed! So pretty!

Chasing a butterfly. She's waiting for it to fly again.

Aspyn is good with puppets and Denali loved her

Denali is giving the puppet a balloon to eat

After the other guests left Uncle Mark set up a sprinkler for the girls to enjoy

Denali says you should wear a swimsuit to run through the sprinkler

Katie has her own ideas about that!

Warren gives great piggy back rides. Denali had so much fun with him.

trying to eek out one more ride...

And that's what I've been up to, more or less! It's been a good month. I love being in Alaska again.